Digital & Content Marketing Success Story

Stephen Humphrey:

Hello, welcome to our case study in influencer marketing. And today is my very warm welcome to a very special guest, Angelica Siciliani Fendi. Good morning, Angelica. How are you?

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

Good morning. I am very well.

Stephen Humphrey:

Good. Pleasure. We are delighted to have you here as part of MMCs learning approach and educating and influencer marketing.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

I’m very happy to be here.

Stephen Humphrey:

No, it’s a pleasure to see you. Great. So we’re going to get straight into it. So what we’d like to do, Angelica is any introduction from yourself first, please?

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

Sure. So I’m an Italian. I mean, I’ve been a student in London for a long time now I graduated at King’s College in business management and then a specialised at Imperial College in strategic marketing. And right after that, I started applying for this graduate scheme in the Estée Lauder companies, the Estée Lauder Companies but then coronavirus. They got these situation and everything basically happened and there’s no more graduates schemes.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

So I started looking into different things and obviously, I have a big passion for marketing and for their creative industries. And I started seeing this big phenomenon happening with TikTok and I really wanted to understand what was going on because they thought that maybe if I could really start understanding the platform itself, it would be a great advantage when I would try and find a job because I could see that a lot of brands were starting to approach the platform in their personal or business account and I thought that there was going to be a big opportunity in there.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

So I just started studying the platform more and more. And this aside from my job, cause I have a… Let’s say I’m a freelancer, a social media manager now in the beauty industry but also other industries. TikTok really helped me because I really understood a lot about how the world of marketing is changing. I mean, it’s an ever-changing industry. I think I’ll never stop learning in marketing because things are always, always changing, but I definitely understood what was going on in that moment and this really gave me an edge. That’s why I started my account.

Stephen Humphrey:

Fantastic. That’s great. I think a lot of people are perhaps confused about TikTok, what it means, what it represents and what it can do for us. And so it’s super valuable to have you here talking about it and your experience with it. So our viewers and our listeners all across our various platforms will be intrigued and enlightened, I have no doubt. Thank you for that.

Stephen Humphrey:

My name is Stephen Humphreys. As many of you know, I have an early background in engineering, and I became a marketer, and I’ve worked within a number of different industries. I have an interest in technology, science, and engineering in general, but more of the application of marketing within developmental contexts. And as we move through this idea of a global COVID-19 virus and the global macro trend, we need to begin to use marketing and the digital platforms in many different ways, and this fascinates me of how that can be done and the results that it drives. I’ve worked with Imperial College Business School for around 9 years now, and I’ve had a very good and very positive experience working with the colleagues there, working with interesting individuals, interesting students over that period of time.

Stephen Humphrey:

In addition, of course, many of you will know that I work with MMC as well. And it MMC learning is a progressive, developmental, experimental organisation that is looking at the creation of education and how we can better educate marketers from a practical as well as a theoretical perspective. And I’ve been involved with the team there at MMC, creating a range of online learning video across the marketing spectrum, all aspects of marketing from branding to research, to customer experience and of course, heavy focus on the digital components within there. And we’ve produced in excess of 700 learning videos, which can be accessed and used by practitioners as well as non practitioners, people in marketing, as well as people not in marketing to learn something about it. And we’re very proud of that online library that we have and how it can be used.

Stephen Humphrey:

You’ll also note that MMC is a accredited study centre with the CIMT Chartered Institute of Marketing, of which many practitioner marketers, many professional marketers would be a member of and have studied with and perhaps continue to study with. So every MMC makes a good choice for us all to be engaged and connected with. But of course, it’s not about me today and everything I’ve done. It’s about Angelica. So you got some pretty impressive stats, Angelica. Check you out at 95 and a half thousand followers and a million likes. Tell us about that. What are those results? Tell us.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

So I started looking into TikTok because Joe Jones let’s say PR guru, she’s this amazing woman whom I’ve been following. She’s been teaching me obviously literally and she doesn’t know me at all, but a lot of marketing class… She gives a lot of my marketing master classes and she advised her students to start looking into TikTok, so that’s what I did. And I have to say, I played with the platform for a whole month before actually looking into what I could do with it, because I really think that it’s important to understand how it works and the features it has. It’s not that simple, I had to contact my little cousin who actually explained it to me. But yeah, Once you get it, it’s pretty straightforward. I got my first 10 K followers in one night.

Stephen Humphrey:

In one night?

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

In one night. And I woke up at 6:00 AM, because my phone was burning. Well, I woke up my boyfriend and I was freaking out, I didn’t know what was happening. I was about to cancel my account. I had a bit of a panic attack, but then obviously I calmed down and I started slowly scaling it up and understanding what it could do with it. And I have to say it’s a pretty powerful tool. So I could actually talk to you through what I do on TikTok or would do you want me to do?

Stephen Humphrey:

Yeah. We’re going get into that conversation. As a kind of a follow-up question, I was going to say… I was going to ask you, you’ve got 95 and a half K or 95 and a half thousand followers. I was going to ask you over what period of time have you developed that? 10% of your followers in one night is a mind blowing kind of statistic, anyway. How long has it taken you to generate the rest of your following?

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

Sorry, I have to get… I have to actually precise this. It wasn’t the first night that I opened my account, but it was the first time that one of my videos went viral. So I already had-

Stephen Humphrey:

Great. Okay, good.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

I already had let’s say 10… I had another TikTok account with which, as I said, I was just playing around and getting to know the platform. When I understood my niche, because one of the most important things and TikTok is having a niche. So talking about one thing and one thing only. Showing your personalities key, but it’s mainly choosing what you want to talk about what you want to communicate as, and to whom. So when I decided that I started this new account and I started posting videos and at my let’s say maybe sixth or seventh video, I got a lot of traction and how in one night I got my first 10 K. I was basically at 150 followers. And then the morning after I was near 10,000.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

After that week by week, it was growing. My phone was always well, always on cause like I received notifications comments stuff. And to be fair, it was quite crazy for me because as I said I never wanted to be an influencer. It wasn’t my goal, I wasn’t expecting that at all. I just wanted to familiarise myself with the platform and then this happened so I had to kind of like go day by day. And I have to say that it really depends on the days. So I never stopped posting, which is also another important feature of TikTok, you can never stop because it’s… Well, the algorithm will just penalise you if you miss for a few days. I remember this was funny from 50 to 70,000, it happened in 24 hours again. That was another crazy moment, like a fire. But then it was just progressive. Like now for example, it’s been 2 weeks that it’s kind of flat because the algorithm changed again.

Stephen Humphrey:

Uh-huh (affirmative), I get it.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

Yeah. So it’s really also obviously they’re working hard at TikTok to change. And kind of like also with this privacy issues they’re experiencing in the U.S. They always have to obviously change and adapt to what’s happening. It grew so much during lockdown all over the world. So clearly, they had to make some changes to the algorithm. I had a lot of people asking me, actually, why did I get less views in this past weeks? And I was experiencing the same thing. As you can see from this screenshot, I have 12 K 19 K like before I had 60, 70 K. It’s just a matter of adapting to the algorithm and it’s happening to everyone. As I said, it’s just ever changing and I think it’s important to develop that attitude of always adapting to what’s happening and I think TikTok is really helping me with that.

Stephen Humphrey:

Okay. That’s excellent. I think for our listeners and our viewers here as well, you come up with a couple of interesting points there. One, when you start on TikTok, you can never stop posting else you’ll be penalised. That’s a great learning point. And great to note that when the algorithm changes that affects your statistics. And so it’s interesting that we… Although we see our headlines statistics, also they can change as the platform evolves its own background processes and algorithmic development. And that’s a really interesting point to note as well.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

There’s a few key things that I think everyone should know about TikTok if you’re looking into it for business or for your personal account. I think that firstly, there are two big misconceptions, which are first it’s for kids. There’s still a lot of people thinking that it’s a platform for well, millennials, whatever.

Stephen Humphrey:

Wow, okay.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

It’s not like that anymore. Maybe it was like this before, it’s really not like that. And it’s linked to my second point, which is you have to know how to dance or lip sync to be on TikTok. I don’t dance, I don’t lip sync, but I have 95 K followers. So I assure you, you can really be successful in this platform by just well, choosing your niche and, just being consistent, and being on top of the algorithms, having a little editing and creativity skills, that’s also a plus, showing a little personality. All of these are kind of like key points, bonus points for TikTok. But these two things really aren’t… Maybe it was like this before. I don’t even know because as I said, I started looking into it in March, but it’s not like that anymore.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

I can see some of the most successful TikTok pages. Obviously, there are some that are like that, girls dancing, boys dancing as well, everyone lip syncing. But one of the main things that is really successful on TikTok is actually the educational side of it. There’s people cooking and showing recipes and showing in a creative way, videos, short videos, 15, 30 seconds of like a beautiful recipe. And just like, I don’t know, it’s visually… It’s addictive, that’s what it is.

Stephen Humphrey:

Uh-huh (affirmative), that’s interesting choice of language, which… Yeah, okay.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

And there’s also people educating on… Well, I don’t know, there’s like a girl who talks about art in every and each of one of her videos, she’s actually… I really like her accounts. She dresses up like artists and every video is just a short history of the artists she’s talking about, she’s presenting. So it’s really like in a creative way talking about one thing that you choose, it could be beauty, it could be… I think that every industry could actually be on TikTok, you just need to find your niche. And-

Stephen Humphrey:

That’s another great point that… Yes, sorry to interrupt you. That’s another great point that you make. Actually, is about finding a niche and that’s a good demonstration of good marketing to find a niche and find those set of followers. Okay. Great. Please.

Angelica Siciliani Fendi:

Sorry. Just one more thing on that. So why the niche? It’s really important because TikTok works like this, you have a “For You” page. Each and every one of us has their own “For You” page. And the algorithm basically shares on your personal “For You” page, what it thinks you might be interested in based on your choice of videos you liked, videos you comment, accounts you followed, hashtag you followed. Hashtags are really big element on TikTok. You can both put your own hashtags and follow other people hashtags and then when you like a person’s video, the algorithm will kind of link it to the hashtags that these people are using, where they will understand what you like more and share on your “For You” page what they think you are going to be interested in. So that’s why I’m saying by looking for and by really being consistent on your niche, you’re going to help the algorithm to help you.